‘I EXPECT LOYALTY’
FBI director told president he wasn’t under investigation Trump pressured him to telll the world
Fired FBI Director James Comey will testify before Congress today that he assured President Trump that he wasn’ t under investigation — but Trump was upset he wouldn’ t publicly announce that.
Ousted FBI Director James Comey will testify Thursday that President Trump asked him to help “lift the cloud” cast over his administration by the Russia probe — and pressured him to publicly announce he was not personally under investigation.
“The President called me at the FBI. He described the Russia investigation as ‘a cloud’ that was impairing his ability to act on behalf of the country,” Comey said in prepared testimony released a day early by the Senate intelligence committee.
“He asked what we could do to ‘lift the cloud.’ I responded that we were investigating the matter as quickly as we could, and that there would be great benefit, if we didn’t find anything, to our having done the work well. He agreed, but then re-emphasized the problems this was causing him.”
Comey said he rebuffed Trump’s request to publicly clear him — made in a March 30 phone call — in part because the FBI would then have to correct the record if that changed and Trump came under suspicion.
Comey also had some good news for the president, confirming Trump’s account that the FBI boss told him several times that “we were not investigating him personally.”
Marc Kasowitz, Trump’s private lawyer, tried to make the most of that disclosure.
“The president feels completely and totally vindicated,” Kasowitz said in a statement. “He is eager to move forward with his agenda.”
But the former FBI chief also repeated previous leaked accounts of his tense encounters with the commander in chief.
At a Jan. 27 dinner, Comey said Trump demanded “loyalty” — a request he said he found disturbing because it could raise questions about the FBI’s impartiality.
“The President said, ‘I need loyalty, I expect loyalty.’ I didn’t move, speak, or change my facial expression in any way during the awkward silence that followed. We simply looked at each other in silence,” Comey recalled.
He said he eventually responded: “You will always get honesty from me.”
“Trump paused for a moment, then came back: ‘That’s what I want, honest loyalty.’ ”
Comey said he was so unnerved by the conversation that he wrote down the exchange in a memo right after the dinner.
“It is possible we understood the phrase ‘honest loyalty’ differently, but I decided it wouldn’t be productive to push it further. The term — honest loyalty — had helped end a very awkward conversation and my explanations had made clear what he should expect,” Comey said.
During the dinner, the presi- dent also asked him if he wanted to stay on as FBI director, Comey said.
The former FBI chief said he was concerned that Trump was trying to create “some sort of patronage relationship.”
He said he also wrote down notes after meeting the president-elect at Trump Tower on Jan. 6 when he and other members of the intelligence community briefed him on Russian meddling in the election.
In fact, Comey said he made notes after every one-on-one conversation with Trump after that.
Such memos were not typical,
he said, adding that he only had two one-on-one conversations with President Barack Obama over eight years and didn’t take notes — compared to nine with Trump, three in person and six on the phone.
During the March 30 call, Trump also denied salacious allegations in a “dossier” prepared by a former British intelligence officer that he had once cavorted with prostitutes in Russia.
“He said he had nothing to do with Russia, had not been involved with hookers in Russia, and had always assumed he was being recorded when in Russia,” Comey said.
In what he described as another troubling meeting, on Feb. 14, Comey said Trump asked him to drop a probe into false statements made by former National Security Adviser Mike Flynn, who failed to tell Congress and Vice President Mike Pence that he had met with the Russian ambassador.
Trump, according to Comey, “said, ‘I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.’ I replied only that ‘he is a good guy.’ I did not say I would ‘let this go.’ ”
Comey said it was “very concerning” that the president would make such a request.
His last contact with Trump came during a phone call on April 11 when the president “asked what I had done about his request that I ‘get out’ that he is not personally under investigation.”
Comey said he referred the request to the acting deputy attorney general, but hadn’t heard back and suggested that Trump contact the official.
Trump said he would and added: “Because I have been very loyal to you, very loyal; we had that thing, you know.”
The call ended and “that was the last time I spoke with President Trump.” Comey was fired on May 9. Republicans said Comey’s prepared testimony backed up Trump.
“President Trump was right,” Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said in a statement.
“Director Comey’s statement reconfirmed what the president has been saying all along — he was never under investigation.”
Democrats said it showed that Trump tried to improperly enlist the FBI chief as a loyalist to help the administration politically.
“It is not the director’s job to lift the cloud of suspicion over the president’s conduct or that of his associates. The request by the president to do so represents yet another improper effort to coerce the intelligence agencies to do public relations for the White House,” said Rep. Adam Schiff of California, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee.